“I AM excited. It’s been a long time coming,” says Tolü Makay, about the return to playing in front of live audiences again, after 18 long months where shows and concerts were deemed impossible.
For Tolü, that will mean playing the Meet Me At The Castle festival, on the grounds of Claregalway Castle, on Saturday September 25 and Sunday 26. “Being in front of audiences and getting automatic feedback,” she tells me, “nothing compares with getting that engagement from the crowd.”
The Covid pandemic has been hard on many, but for those in the arts it meant a cessation of their livelihood and an upending of their raison-d’etre as performers. Tolü though, who in conversation, very much comes across as a wise head on young shoulders, has chosen to draw positives from the entire experience.
.
Photo:- Róisín Murphy O'Sullivan.
“I think there are a series of lessons that have come along the way,” she says. “It taught me how strong I am, having patience, and letting go, and doing as much as I can without putting pressure on myself, for as we’ve seen, the world can just stop.”
‘As real as possible’
It was during the height of the Covid pandemic that Tolü truly came to national attention with her cover of The Saw Doctors’ ‘N17’, with the RTÉ Concert Orchestra.
This young woman, whose family emigrated to Ireland when she was five, singing a song which has so deeply captured the experiences of the Irish emigrant - at home and abroad - said something quite powerful and moving about modern Ireland. Given the song’s themes of isolation, lonlinless, and the longing for the familiar, it also resonated powerfully with many people’s experiences of the Covid pandemic.
“With any song, I try to make it as real as possible,” says Tolü, “that’s where the engagement and communication comes from. Singing allows me to express parts of me I don’t normally show. It lets me express joys and emotions I don’t naturally share. A song challenges me to feel the emotion within it.
“When people heard it they found their own attachment to it. It’s all been positive. People resonated with it, especially people who emigrated, their sharing their stories of missing home struck a chord with me. That’s the great thing about art, people feeling the emotion and seeing themselves in the song.”
Wisely, Tolü does not want this song to define her, and neither should she, for she is a songwriter who has her own vision to share. That came with the Being EP which was released late last year, and Ireland had another taste of Tolü’s vision with her most recent single, ‘Aye’.
The song draws on Tolü’s Yoruba heritage (a west African ethnic group, predominantly in Nigeria ), and features Nigerian children providing backing vocals. Indeed, with it’s lines, “When I was 10, I was called for, now that I am here, living my truth, I am stronger”, it is bound to chime with the feelings of many as we emerge from the Covid crisis.
“We have had a really bleak and tense time with Covid,” says Tolü, “but this song is a celebration of our inner child - which is why we have the children singing on it - and showing joy, having fun, and celebrating. It’s also about missing Nigeria and my family there. The section in Yoruba is my Grandmother, and it means giving praise of one's person.”
So far, Tolü’s songs have ranged from Afro-pop to singer-songwriter to soul. Currently she is at work on her debut album, and diversity is set to be it’s hallmark. “It will explore different genres I have not released yet,” she says. “It is something I hope people will love and that it will resonate with them.”
‘Black artists are coming up’
The emergence of artists like Tolü, as well as Denise Chaila, not to mention comedian Emman Idama, among others, has been one of the most exciting developments in Irish arts, culture, and entertainment in recent years - a new Black-Irish generation is finding its voice and sharing its truth.
Yet, as Tolü points out, “Black Irish artists have always been doing their thing”, a reality that goes back to Phil Lynott in the 1970s. Sher further points out: “But people haven’t always been given the chance to listen, and there is also a disparity in gender roles, but songs are coming through and Black artists are coming up, but more opportunities need to be given to them.”
The return to live music, and Tolü’s appearance at Meet Me At The Castle, also sees her return to Galway, a place she cites as having been important in her own personal development when she studied psychology and philosophy at NUIG.
.
Photo:- Bobby Zithelo
“With anyone going to university, it gives you space to be reflective and to discover your own person, it gives you the freedom to question things, and see how other people live their lives,” she says. “Moving away from Tullamore, and going to university was a chance to gaze into other worlds. I was meeting people from all over the world.”
Tickets for Meet Me At The Castle are available via www.hibernacle.ie, and are sold as individual day tickets to attend on either the Saturday or the Sunday. Tolü Makay will perform on both days of the festival.
